Chicago cops set for trial will likely see fellow officers testify against them

An embattled Cook County judge also is expected to take the stand.

SHARE Chicago cops set for trial will likely see fellow officers testify against them
Sgt. Xavier Elizondo in federal court.

Sgt. Xavier Elizondo when he appeared in federal court.

FOX32

Federal prosecutors say at least four Chicago police officers and a judge will testify against two cops set to go on trial for allegedly giving bogus information to get search warrants they used to steal cash and drugs.

Embattled Cook County Judge Mauricio Araujo is expected to take the stand for prosecutors at the trial of Sgt. Xavier Elizondo and Officer David Salgado. He will answer questions about a warrant he signed for them outside a Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in River North, prosecutors say.

That’s according to a 37-page document filed by prosecutors late Monday laying out the evidence against Elizondo and Salgado, indicted in May 2018. They’re accused of a civil-rights conspiracy and other crimes. Their trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 7.

Among the cops expected to testify is Joseph Treacy, one of two officers who fired at Joshua Beal in a racially charged incident that left Beal dead in Mount Greenwood in 2016. The feds say Officer Jose Sanchez “and at least two other officers” also will take the stand.

The decision by Treacy, Sanchez and the other officers to testify against their former colleagues is significant in light of the Laquan McDonald case, in which three cops were accused of covering up the fatal shooting of the 17-year-old on the South Side in 2014.

Those three officers were cleared of criminal charges for allegedly writing fake reports to protect Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is serving a 6¾-year sentence for McDonald’s murder.

In 2015, reacting to the McDonald case, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel condemned a “code of silence” in the police department that encourages cover-ups.

Federal prosecutors said Elizondo was worried about cops who didn’t abide by a code of silence. He’s accused of telling one informant not to talk to another officer about illegal payments the informant was getting, explaining the other officer was “not like us, he’s not cut from the same cloth.”

Elizondo and Salgado are accused of abusing a system that let cops use anonymous informants, known as “John Does.”

Informants working for the officers allegedly gave false information to Cook County judges — including Araujo — to get search warrants for properties where they’re accused of stealing money, drugs and cartons of cigarettes. They’re charged with sharing the illegal proceeds with the informants.

The feds set traps for the officers in late 2017 and early 2018, hiding thousands of dollars in a rental car and in a stove in an unoccupied apartment the officers were led to believe was a drug stash house.

Salgado allegedly presented Araujo with the warrant outside Smith & Wollensky as he and Elizondo prepared to raid the West Side apartment they thought was a stash house for two Puerto Rican brothers known as “Big Bum” and “Little Bum.”

Chicago police officer David Salgado.

Chicago police officer David Salgado.

FOX32

Araujo is expected to testify that he found probable cause and issued a warrant after questioning Salgado and an informant who posed as a “John Doe.”

In January 2018, Treacy and Sanchez helped Elizondo and Salgado search a gray Hyundai sedan in a motel parking lot near Midway Airport; the FBI had stashed $18,200 in the car.

During the search, caught on video, Elizondo searched the trunk and surreptitiously motioned to Salgado, according to the feds. Elizondo showed the money to Salgado, prosecutors say. Then, rather than document the money, Elizondo allegedly stuffed it back in a side panel.

The officers later moved the car to a nearby business, Amigos Frozen Foods, and searched it again. Treacy and Sanchez learned only after the search ended that money had been found in the trunk. Two other officers had also arrived to help.

Later, Elizondo called Salgado to discuss having a drug-sniffing dog inspect the car and the money. Toward the end of the call, Elizondo allegedly said, “And, uh, we’re good, alright, you know what I mean?” Salgado replied, “yeah.”

The feds say Salgado was seated next to Treacy during that phone call and Treacy heard both sides of the conversation. “It sounded to Officer Treacy like Elizondo and Salgado were trying to speak in code about something,” the feds wrote.

“Officer Treacy will also testify that Salgado’s demeanor changed noticeably at that point in the conversation — specifically, that he turned away from Officer Treacy and lowered his voice as though Salgado was trying to conceal that part of the conversation from Officer Treacy,” prosecutors said.

The feds say Elizondo and Salgado were later alone with the money “for several minutes” inside their Homan Square office. Only $14,000 was inventoried from that search — $4,200 less than the FBI stashed in the car.

In March, the Sun-Times published an investigation that showed Araujo approved nearly half the search warrants issued to Elizondo’s gang unit over the past three years.

The FBI questioned Araujo about a month before Elizondo and Salgado were indicted in May 2018.

Araujo isn’t accused of wrongdoing in the federal case; in his FBI interview he described his relationship with Salgado as “more than an acquaintance but not quite a friend.”

He said he went to a wake for Salgado’s mother and met with Salgado in Cartagena, Colombia, at Salgado’s bachelor party, which overlapped with the 80th birthday party for Araujo’s father. Araujo also told the FBI he was invited to Salgado’s wedding and reception in 2017.

Meanwhile, Araujo has been accused in an unrelated matter of trying to kiss a female police officer, making improper sexual advances toward a female court reporter and demeaning a female prosecutor. Administrative charges against Araujo are pending before the state’s Judicial Inquiry Board. He has been reassigned from courtroom duties.

In 2016, Treacy, who is white, was off duty when he fired his weapon at a black man pointing a gun during a racially charged traffic incident in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood. The man, Joshua Beal, was killed; an off-duty police sergeant also fired at Beal.

In April, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability found the two officers were justified in using deadly force. The COPA decision said it was impossible to tell whether Beal was struck by bullets from one or both of the officers’ guns.

Contributing: Sam Charles

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